How We Got Our Bible: The First Widely Published Greek New Testament

Before 1516, comparing biblical texts meant laying them side by side.
That is what the great polyglot editions did. A polyglot set the versions in parallel columns on a single page - a column for Hebrew, one for the Aramaic Targum, one for the Latin, one for the Septuagint, and one for the Greek New Testament itself, in that case a Byzantine-Majority text. Extraordinary work. But the Complutensian Polyglot, whose Greek New Testament was printed in 1514, was not released until years later and ran to just six hundred copies. Scholarship at that scale stays in a handful of rooms.
The change came in 1516, when the Greek scholar Erasmus published a Greek New Testament widely - more than a few hundred copies. For the first time, the New Testament in its own language was genuinely available to scholars across Europe.
That date is worth remembering, because almost everything that follows in this series runs through it. Later printed editions built on Erasmus' work, and the English translation line that produced the King James descends from that base.
One edition, one year, and the shape of the English Bible was set for centuries.
Scripture links:
- 2 Timothy 3:16 - all Scripture is breathed out by God.
- Luke 1:1-4 - a careful, orderly account.
- Romans 15:4 - written for our instruction.
1516 is where the modern story starts.